Supplementary Material

Supplementary Figure 1 shows that one of the major differences between vertebrate CEL sequences and those of other serine esterases (such as the carboxylesterases CES1-CES6) is an apparent insertion at positions 139–146 which appears to act as a surface loop that partially covers the opening to the catalytic triad and allows access to the active site by water soluble substrates by the truncated CEL. This active site loop is also readily apparent in the predicted structures for mouse CEL and zebrafish CEL1.

Supplementary Figure 2 shows a comparative nucleotide sequence alignment diagram for the CpG51 region of the human CEL gene in comparison with several other mammalian and other vertebrate CEL genes; derived from the UCSC Genome Browser using the Comparative Genomics track to examine alignments and evolutionary conservation of CEL gene sequences for the CpG51 region containing dinucleotide and trinucleotide repeats; regions of sequence identity are shaded from black to a lighter color according to the degree of identity. The Multiz alignment patterns observed demonstrated extensive sequence conservation for the CpG island which contains dinucleotide and trinucleotide repeat sequences in most genomes examined.

Supplementary Table presents comparative nucleotide sequences for miR485-5p like CEL gene regions for several vertebrate genomes which shows high levels of sequence identity, particularly among mammalian CEL miRNA target sites and suggests that this site has been predominantly conserved during vertebrate evolution, particularly by eutherian mammalian CEL genes.